I am now at a stage in my research where I look more into Swedes who emigrated to the USA and participated in the Great War in US Army.
A while ago I was asked to write an article about my research and I decided then to write about Swedish Immigrants who participated in The American Expeditionary Forces when they went over to Europe.
Below you can find a link to my article at the association Doughboy Foundation who is working in partnership with the U.S. WWI Centennial Commission. It was an honour to contribute and I will highly likely write more articles about Swedish born individuals who emigrated to the USA and participated in the War.
Earlier, in 2021, I wrote a blog post about those Swedish born soldiers, who fell in the Great War, were brought home and reburied in Sweden. You can read that blog post here:
At that time I had only found nine of those 17 in total that I know about now. For a period of time I have been thinking that it can be more than those 17, but the other day I found an old article in an issue from the Magazine “American Legion” which on page 22 mention those soldiers from other countries than the USA, who were brought home to their countries of birth.
In this magazine it is mentioned that it was 17 soldiers who initially were buried in France or Belgium, who later were disinterred and transported to Sweden. Of those 17 soldiers 15 were born in Sweden, although two of them were born by Swedish parents in the USA. Those two were Albert M Benson (Albert Markus Eugen Bengtsson), born in Brooklyn, and Herman I Hermanson (Herman Irving Hermansson), born in New York.
As I now have 17 of them in my research, who I found by manually searching through the casualty cards of each soldier, I am now quite sure that it is only those 17 that were brought back to Sweden.
The reason for why the soldiers were brought to Sweden was probably that the descendants were asked in the 1920s if their sons or husbands should be brought back to US, remained buried in France or Belgium, or brought back to the country of birth.
Some of the relatives to these soldiers answered that they wanted them to be sent home to Sweden, and they got their wish granted. The reason for that was probably that the majority of the relatives lived in Sweden, and they wanted to be able to visit their fallen.
Below you will now find all of the cards from those 17 soldiers that were reburied in Sweden.
I have only managed to find and visit one soldier of those 17, Ernest Johnson (Ernst Hildemar Valentin Jonsson) from Örsjö, Kronoberg County, Småland, Sweden.
I hope I will be able to find more burials of those 17 to visit here in Sweden.
Through my constant search for interesting Swedish connections to the Great War, I came across an interesting note about a Swedish born soldier who joined the Canadian Army just a few days after the war broke out. He was discharged in January 25, 1919, and was lucky to have survived. The soldier was John Sigfried Zetterman.
John Sigfried Zetterman was born as Johan Sigfrid Sätterman in Ransäter parish, Munkfors, Värmland, Sweden, on November 13, 1878. He was raised by his parents Ingeborg Persdotter and Eric Olsson.
His surname Sätterman is noted in the Swedish church books, and it may come from his older brother Carl E Zetterman (Karl Engelbrekt Sätterman) who called himself “Sätterman” in the church books before he left for North America in 1895. Two more siblings left for North America already in 1882 and 1891.
Johan left Sweden in November 1901, and arrived in New York in January, 1902. John lived with his brother Carl in Kokomo, Howard County, Indiana, for several years, but when the war broke out he enlisted for the Canadian Army on August 10, 1914, just a few days after Great Britain declared war. He signed his Attestation Papers for CEF on August 22, 1914.
He arrived in France February 12, 1915, and already on April 25, 1915, he received his first wound, GSW in hand and arm, during the fightings in the area of Langemark, Belgium. He was sent to rest in the 12th Stationary Hospital in Rouen, France.
He was wounded a second time during the fightings in the area of Courcelette in France, in September 1916. In June 1918 he was gassed so severely that he was sent to a rest camp in England. He stayed there until the armistice, and later on returned to Canada to receive his final discharge on January 25, 1919.
John had been a soldier of the fourth Overseas battalion in CEF. He was given a land grant by the Canadian government.
He had the honor to serve longer in the World War than any other Howard County soldier.
John died of Tuberculosis in St Joseph’s Hospital, Parry Sound, Ontario, Canada on May 30, 1928.
It is not known to me, on this moment, where he is buried today. So far he may be the Swedish born soldier that I have read about so far, that have served the longest in the Great War. May he rest in peace.
When researching for Swedish born soldiers in different digital archives, the result often comes out without any specific difficulties. You only have to be aware of what could have been changed between their emigration period and when they finally came home from the war, or when they fell and became buried on the battlefield, or at home.
It is normal that Scandinavian names and surnames were changed, especially when they emigrated to North America and Canada.
In this case it was a bit harder. I will take you through the process when I finally found out who Karl Severin Bengtson probably was in the Great War.
I like to read old digitized newspapers, and in this case I found a note about Karl Severin Bengtson (Bengtsson), how it was described to his family back home in Sweden, that he fell on the Western Front on November 8th, 1918.
My first reaction was that I thought it was a bit sad that he fell so close to the armistice.
Below you can read the Swedish text about Karl, in the second part of the text. I have translated the actual text to english below the snippet.
“-According to the message sent to the family, Karl Severin Bengtson fell on the Western Front on November 8th. He was born 1883 in Renneslöfs (Renneslöv) parish and he is mourned by his mother and his siblings.”
In the text above it is also mentioned that Harry L Carlson was killed in France. He actually fell on November 11th, 1918. His name was Harry Leonard Carlson, he kept his name and his surname, and was quite easy to find in different archives. I visited Harry last summer, in St. Mihiel American Cemetery.
Back to Karl Severin. I tried to find more information about Karl through Swedish church books and also on Ancestry. But the only results that I found on Ancestry was the facts I already knew from the Swedish Archives. No information to be found about any participation in the war. I changed the spelling, used the date of birth, date of death, but still no results. I decide to search without his surname, and also added his parents names, in this case Sven and Agneta.
I searched in the American and Canadian Archives, but still no luck.
Finally, on Ancestry, I found a Carl Swanson, with the same date of death as Karl Severin. Could this be a lead?
Below a snippet of the document I found. Normally it is hard to find the Canadian cards of “circumstance of death” regarding surnames beginning with “Sims” and beyond, due to damage of those cards.
On the card there is a lot of information that can be connected to Sweden. Mrs N Gengetson sounds like Bengtson, but it should be A Bengtson, as in “Agneta”. The village Lahelm is probably Laholm in the landscape of Halland in Sweden, here described as “Holland”. Ränneslöv parish is situated in Laholm region. Carl died of Influenza, and is buried in Canada.
I found 3215010 Carl Swanson in Library and Archives Canada, and here I got more information to compare to the facts I have about Karl Severin. Could Carl Swanson be Karl Severin Bengtsson?
Below you will see a snippet from the Canadian Archive, with some more explanations below the snippet.
The date of birth is May 29th, 1883 for Carl Swanson, and May 30th, 1883 for Karl Severin. Renslofs Saken, Sweeden is probably Ränneslövs Socken (parish) in Sweden.
The name Nita Bengtsen is probably Agneta Bengtson, as Nita is probably the nickname for his mother Agneta, and it is quite common in Sweden to call Agneta for “Neta”.
My conclusion in this case is that I have probably found Karl Severin, to be Carl Swanson. His middle name Severin and his surname Bengtsson disappeared during his time in Canada. Karl was later spelled Carl, which was very common. Karl Severin left Sweden in May 1901.
But Carl Swanson didn’t participate in the war on the Western Front, as states in the newspaper. He died in Strathcona Military Hospital, Canada, from Influenza, and he is buried in Edmonton Mount Pleasant Cemetery, in Edmonton. Below you can see how and when he probably catched his Illness, that later on led to his death.
Carl Swanson is one of few Swedish born soldiers that seems to have been drafted under the Canadian Military Service Act (M.S.A) and it looks like he was naturalized as well.
I find it very interesting to find the actual story of the different individuals I find within my research, and I can’t avoid thinking of if his family ever was informed about the actual circumstances about Carl’s death.
That will maybe be another story. May Carl rest in peace.
One thing I like with my research is to really try to find all the facts that I can about certain individuals, and later on connect them to the terrain through other documents such as diaries, maps and similar documents.
Suddenly I came across the files about Oscar Horace Nelson, as his name was a typical Scandinavian name. I decided to look him up and below you will find the small story about Oscar and especially his link to Sweden.
Oscar Horace Nelson – Ancestry
I found the photo of Oscar Horace Nelson on Ancestry, and he looked quite thin and small on the photo, when he is wearing his uniform from the Australia Imperial Forces.
I quickly found some other pages on the web about Oscar Horace Nelson, which describes his story in detail and below you will find the links to those pages:
Below I will contribute to the story with facts about his Swedish father, Johan Nilsson, or John Nelson as he called himself in Australia. I will also mention some information about the terrain where Oscar fell, and the circumstances about his death.
His father Johan Nilsson was born in Hannas, Väsby Parish, in Malmöhus county, Skåne, Sweden, December 13th, 1849, and raised by his parents Lars Nilsson and Karna Larsdotter.
I have tried to find when Johan left Sweden, but is has been hard to find the specific emigration document, or emigration note in the Swedish Church books. I have found documents about when he was granted Naturalisation in Australia in 1893, at Port Adelaide, Australia. Johan was a sailor, as many of those Swedish born soldiers who stepped off in Australia and later joined The Australian Forces in WW1, for various reasons.
I have also found that he married Oscar’ mother Johanna Rodgers, later on Johanna Nelson, also called Annie. Johan and Johanna were married in Brompton, South Australia, in 1878.
Arkiv DigitalNational Archives of AustraliaArkiv Digital
Johan Nilsson and his wife are buried at the same cemetery, at Hindmarch Cemetery, South Australia.
findagrave
But what happened to Oscar? The specific death of Oscar occurred January 7th, 1917.
Oscar was in-charge of a pack of Mules which were loaded with provisions. He had been leading the mules to Fleurs and Gueudecourt from Pozieres when in an instant, a shell exploded nearby. He was killed on the spot by shrapnel and debris.
Below there are some documents that describes the moments, described by some witnesses.
If we look at some maps we will find the area where he was buried, close to the dressing station near the HQ of the 12th brigade, AIF, which was the unit Oscar’s battalion belonged to. He was initially buried at the Switch Trench Cemetery, but later moved to his final resting place, Guards Cemetery, Lesboeufs, France, 16 km North-East of the town of Albert.
The HQ was established in the vicinity of the old German trenches, the Switch Trench and the Gap Trench, by the time Oscar was killed, according to the unit diary. The trenches were established South-East of the village of Flers as you will see on the maps below.
Australian War MemorialNational Archives of Australiamcmaster.camcmaster.ca
Next time, when I am in the area I will visit Oscar on his final resting place, and take my own photo of his headstone. Below you will find a snippet of another photo, from one of the links above, where you can find more info about Oscar and his adventure, before he fell on the battlefield along the Western Front.
Special offer for Great War Group Conference in Brighton 2023 – See below!
So finally, my first book about the Swedish born soldiers, who fought and fell in the Great War, at the Western Front, is almost finished! It is ready for the printer, and the first copy will be finished for printing next week!
This book is about those Swedish born soldiers who fought and fell in the Great War and are buried or Commemorated in Belgium. The book describes my passion, project and my research, Swedish emigration to the countries they served for, and small stories about those 48 soldiers who fought in WW1 at the Western Front, fell and are buried or commemorated in Belgium.
Special offer!
On October 20th to 22nd, 2023, I will participate in the Great War Group Conference in Brighton, and I will be able to bring a limited amount of books, to bring over to those who wants to buy my book, and have it handed over to them at the conference.
In this case it is only possible to pay in advance, so I don’t have to handle any payments at the conference!
This one time special offer for Brighton Conference is:
If you will visit the conference, and want me to bring your copy, email me on the email below, to get the special offer payment link! The payment will be able to do with PayPal and Google Pay or card through Stripe!
As my space on the plane will be limited it will be first come, first served!
For those who are not able to visit the conference, the book will shortly be available here on my website, through the “shop” link in the main menu. It will be available to order on demand within two to three weeks, if everything goes according to plan.
Sometimes a movie with photos and text can bring a lot when it comes to understand a subject. In this case I decided to do a short video about those Swedes who fought and fell for the French Foreign legion in the Great War. I also chose to include some of the other Swedes who participated and survived.
You can find the video in the website area to the right. Thank you for watching.
I have now developed some new functions on my webpage and now you can find the possibility to use the links about the soldiers in the Main menu, and through those find that the list are searchable and can be filtered.
I can be a nice function for those who are visiting the FWW battlefield cemeteries and want to know how many Swedish born soldiers there are in that specific cemetery.
Below you find a screenshot of how it looks now.
The links in the screenshot below are now updated with new functions.
When I started this project, I said to myself that one day I will write a book about my research. During the process it has turned out that it will probably be several books, and maybe one book in the end, about the research in itself.
Right now I am in the middle of producing the first book of several in a serie of guidebooks.
The first book will contain information about those Swedish born soldiers who fought and fell at the Western Front in Belgium. In the book you will be able to follow in the footsteps of the Swedes, where they were born in Sweden to the place where they fell and are buried.
The focus will be on the soldiers and not so much about the battles in which they fought, even if it it will some information about that as well.
Hopefully the book will be finished in the beginning of 2023.
